The Pacific Northwest Region of the Classic Car Club of America is one of the most active purveyors of information on the greatest automobiles ever built. Please join us for an event or come to our meetings held on the first Wednesday of every month, 6 pm in Kirkland (please check with the club secretary for the current location). 5 pm is the start of the social hour, then on to business. Dinner and drinks are brought in for you; the cost varies depending on the venue and the fare, but typically hovers around $10/person – a great deal! And the people are always delightful.

Join the club by contacting Val Dickison, Secretary and Membership, 206-546-3306

We have permission to give a flavor of this article and a link to the full-meal-deal. Paul Ingrassia wrote a piece about Monterey Car Week that should be required reading for anyone who appreciates the position cars hold in our hearts and minds.

Here is an excerpt:

MONTEREY, Calif. — The Costanoan and Esselen Native American tribes from the 18th Century have long since departed this peninsula. More recently, the modern tribes who powwow here every August have decamped too.

These latter-day tribes include the Exotici, who worship high-horsepower and high-testosterone deities with such names as Koenigsegg, Lamborghini and Ferrari. The rival Classicarini tribe — whose leaders include shaman Wayne Carini — practices ancestor worship, venerating Pre-War Preservation, Post-War Grand Touring and other primitive but beautiful gods from the past.

Other modern clans that gather here include the Germania, the Italianos, the Brits and the wondrously weird Lemoni.

This powwow is Monterey Car Week, which has grown from a modest one-day event that started in 1951 to encompass nine days of high-revving, free-wheeling automotive adulation. The hundreds of thousands of people who convene here each August are viewed by outsiders as a monolithic horde of dipstick-loving, lockstep-thinking car crazies. But for those inside the big automotive teepee, the truth is more nuanced.

Many Classicarini regard the Exotici as nouveau-riche show-offs who buy modern $2 million-plus “hypercars” to flaunt their wealth. “It’s not about the way the cars race, or about the cars,” explained 71-year-old John Grosseto Orange County, Calif., proud owner of a classic 1955 Osca MT4. “It’s about young drivers with more money than brains. They buy the car because they can buy it, not because they really love the car.”